A Wellington-based writer and performer hoping to take her acclaimed play about her struggle with mental illness to the Sydney and Melbourne Fringe Festivals needs a little help to get there. Freya Desmarais lengthily named piece Home / The Hilarious Comedy About How I Nearly Killed Myself / A Play About How I Nearly Died But Didn't Then Learned A Lot About Life Afterward, is also known more simply just as Home. As the title suggests, it’s a frank piece. “I noticed that humour and honesty got me a lot of the way. But I also noticed that a lot of people aren't really very honest or frank about mental illness at all. We dare not speak its name, and I think that puts lives in danger,” Desmarais says. “I figured if we don't make it okay to talk about, then people in that pit of despair aren't gonna want to mention it, and that's really dangerous. “So I did what every self-respecting white middle class person does when they have something to say: I wrote a damn play about it.” Home has already scored rave reviews from shows in Wellington, Auckland and Hamilton. “I happen to be part of the lgbtq community and some issues to do with this are touched on in the play,” Desmarais tells GayNZ.com Daily News. “Before I travel to Australia, I'm doing a fundraising tour of the show around the North Island, and have set up a Pledge Me page and would love to have the support of my fellow lgbtq friends in helping put another queer person's story on the international stage.” You can help here
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 2nd June 2014 - 11:52am